


ser lysandra

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, Orlais, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1381819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jezebel Hawke becomes Empress and has a child-- a young lady who would be a knight, on her own terms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ser lysandra

When Jezebel was small, Leandra called her ‘princess’, brushed the tangles out of her frizzy golden hair, insisted on baths every week no matter where they were, even if it had to be taken in a shallow pool full of dead leaves and strange fish. But Jez had never _felt_ it, never looked in a glass and saw what her mother saw, what made the light shine in her mother’s eyes whenever she beheld her first daughter.

Here in Orlais, dressed in royal silk and brocade and foamy lace, her bronze skin flushed with health and a touch of creamy rouge, her tamed hair curled and coiled and heaped high on her head so tendrils of it floated down to frame her round face, she _felt_ it. She could almost see Leandra standing behind her, arms folded and full lips curved in a mother-knows-all smirk — _"See? What did I tell you, girl? You were_ born _royalty.”_

A knock sounds, and she bade the knocker to enter. Her daughter is reflected in the mirror, hovering in the doorframe, tall and stoop-shouldered. Jez turns to beckon her forward, hoping the same light shined in her eyes as shined in her own mother’s.

"Come, Lysandra. Let me see how Renault’s work fits you." She’d had the armourer craft a suit for her broad-shouldered but fine-featured daughter, who’d inherited Sebastian’s bone structure and Jez’s sturdiness, who Jez had draped in dresses when she’d learnt that the sweet, solemn child she’d named Lysander preferred to be known by the feminine form of the name, but who ultimately begged her empress mother for leave to dress like a knight.

"They’ll still think me a boy, Mother," Lysandra whispered, and Jezebel thought of the paintings of Ser Aveline — both of them, both the historical legend and Jezebel’s own guard and former lover — that decorated her daughter’s wall.

"I can’t stop them from thinking, my love," she responded softly, smoothing Lysandra’s russet hair away from her high forehead, and leaning up to place a tender kiss on her brow. "You have armour for your body now. It’s time for you to armour your heart as well, Ser Lysandra, my daughter and my light."


End file.
